AMANDA J. BRADLEY

A Toast to Charles Baudelaire

You urge us to be drunk on wine, virtue, or poetry,
as long as we are drunk. Avoid the burden of time,
you say. Aging, death, insignificance, nothingness.

I tried to be drunk on wine. But I couldn’t get
the key in the lock of the front door and nearly
froze in my stupor in the vestibule. I woke nude
in a pile of red wine puke, some man’s piss
on the bathroom floor, unsure what had passed.
I dared a man pointing a gun at me to shoot
and forked over a thousand bucks in repairs
when he stole my car. I had no center drunk
on wine. I flailed and careened through my days.

But Charles, I do still want to be drunk. I would try
virtue if it suited me at all. I don’t mean to protest,
but I live by a wild code. Creative impulses swim
through me where virtue would clog my veins.

I choose poetry for the drunken fling of my
later years, when I most need to thrash at time.
You understand, Charles. Words welled up in you.
You, too, needed a place for observations big
and small to land. You threw emotions on the page
like a painter the canvas, a cook his pot, an ocean
the tide, a volcano, the mountainside. Yes, Charles,
let’s be volatile and extreme now I’ve picked my poison.

Amanda J. Bradley has published three poetry collections with NYQ Books: Queen Kong, Oz at Night, and Hints and Allegations and has published poems, fiction, and essays widely in anthologies and literary magazines such as Paterson Literary Review, Chiron Review, Lips, Rattle, The New York Quarterly, and Gargoyle. Amanda is a graduate of the MFA program at The New School, and she holds a PhD in English and American Literature from Washington University in St. Louis. She lives in Indianapolis, and her website can be found at www.amandajbradley.com.